In his speech on Thursday, Huhne said nuclear electricity could and should play a part in our energy future provided that new nuclear was built without public subsidy.

His aides said he felt there would be no need for public subsidies, saying it was an “essential reassurance” to taxpayers and energy consumers that “this will never happen again”.

He also set out five key tests he will apply to any nuclear power stations built.

Huhne noted the UK has enough high-level nuclear waste to fill “three Olympic-sized swimming pools, and enough intermediate waste to fill a supertanker”. Because of the errors of the past, his department was spending £2bn a year “cleaning up” the “mess” of nuclear waste which he said would rise two thirds next year.

“Nuclear energy has risks, but we face the greater risk of accelerating climate change if we do not embark on another generation of nuclear power. Time is running out. Nuclear can be a vital and affordable means of providing low carbon electricity,” he said.

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The Atomic Age is an ongoing project that aims to cultivate critical and reflective intervention regarding nuclear power and weapons. We provide daily news updates on the issues of nuclear energy and weapons, primarily though not exclusively in English and Japanese via RSS, Twitter, and Facebook. If you would like to receive updates in English only, subscribe to this RSS.

Additional Notes / 謝辞

The artwork in the header, titled "JAPAN:Nuclear Power Plant," is copyright artist Tomiyama Taeko.

The photograph in the sidebar, of a nuclear power plant in Byron, Illinois, is copyright photographer Joseph Pobereskin (http://pobereskin.com/)

This website was designed by the Center for East Asian Studies, the University of Chicago, and is administered by Masaki Matsumoto, Graduate Student in the Masters of Arts Program for the Social Sciences, the University of Chicago.

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